About 18 months ago we had a hive of bees here over spring and summer for fruit and vegetable pollination purposes. We were hoping to have one back this spring and summer but with COVID it didn't happen. Now due to roadworks about 20 minutes drive away, near a house where our friends have two hives, we have those hives here. It is not so much that the bees do not like dust, but that they consider the machinery a hive threat and attack the drivers so bees needed to be moved for duration. Not a lot flowering here, but should be sufficient in locality to keep them happy. Plenty of honey in hive too, so no real stress. Kids love having them here, which is great.

How fascinating! I spend a lot of time in my garden watching bees.

The kids should learn a lot from watching those bees and seeing how they interact. I always enjoyed watching them and still do.

Ok, we have 4 bee hives here, or rather had this morning, bee man and one son turned up about 3 pm to inspect hives, just as well as while we were talking about what needed doing, the son suddenly said what's that, I think a hive has swarmed. Closer inspection confirmed that was indeed the case, grad a bee catch box, shake bees into it, queen must have fallen in as all bees suddenly start to head into hive. All good, leave for half an hour or so, so that all bees go in box, cover and allow to settle and hive number 5 is set. This will stay for 24 hours and be picked up tomorrow night and taken elsewhere by bee man so that they don't return to previous hive. Bees that gorged on food in lead up to swarming that they can't sting.

Inspection of the 4 original hives then proceeded, very interesting process, hives not too bad for this time of year, but could have been better. A lot of queen cells found in one hive, so some places in capture box and taken elsewhere, so second bonus hive for the day, a lot of upset bees and a few stings taken by those not fully covered, I scored 3 for the day and Mrs one.

After many years of being goosey around any stinging, flying insect, the past several years I have calmed down and have yearned for some bee hives. I have a nephew who is a bee keeper and would love for him to help set up a hive in my area.

Well worth the effort @Paulf . Just need a spot a bit out of the way where they can face South and have water readily accessible, a good solid base to sit on and ideally sloping just a little bit incase water gets in so it can run out.

Unfortunately and unknown to us, the swarm left the box during the day yesterday and when our local bee man took it home it was empty rather than occupied as we expected. Need to find that swarm today if we can.

Good news on bee swarm front, they were actually in the box after all, just hunkered down and ignoreing all wake up calls.

Whwoz wrote: ↑Fri Oct 21, 2022 3:21 am Good news on bee swarm front, they were actually in the box after all, just hunkered down and ignoreing all wake up calls.

I know that feeling; sometimes you just don't wanna get up. Hope they're enjoying their new home now.